Popular game "World of War" features state-of-the-art graphics, as demonstrated with the enhanced smoke effects seen in this screenshot.

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The United Nations, producer of popular live-action role-playing game "World of War," announced its Middle East server will undergo scheduled maintenance starting at 7am on Monday. It is unclear when the server will be back in operation, but company officials assure everyone that it will likely be "very soon."

The Middle East server has been hosting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for decades, and more recently has become very popular due to the "Israeli-Lebanon" expansion. The expansion let players assume the role of Hezbollah, which has an exciting arsenal of medium range rockets - "far better than the primitive weapons of the Palestinian faction," exclaims player Timmy Johnson.

The United Nations promises to add even more excitement in future releases of "World of War" on the Middle East server. CEO Kofi Annan announced that new races, "like the Syrians" will soon be available for play. Rumors abound that the NPC Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the Iranian faction will one day also be available for play. "Fans really enjoyed all the cut-scenes we had with him," revealed Annan.

While the Middle East server is down for repairs, the UN says its "Iraq" servers will continue running as normal. "That one is hosted by subsidiary United States and will be unaffected by the maintenance," assured US spokesperson John Bolton. Donald Rumsfeld, lead developer on "Iraq," said players will continue to experience "lots of IEDs, car bombings, and assassinations" - staples of the "Baghdad" server. President Bush is reportedly a huge fan of the game, and is known for yelling "bring 'em on!" in the heat of gameplay.

Some investors are skeptical of the UN's ability to handle the bandwidth required for "World of War" and are afraid rival game "World of Peace" will one day dominate the markets. But UN CEO Annan laughed off such speculation, announcing that new version of "War" are being released "as we speak." The company will concentrate on niche markets like "Sri Lanka" and "Somalia" in which the competing "peace" game was beginning to take hold.

"World of War" is available in stores worldwide for the price of one moral conscience, and requires a monthly subscription fee of twenty injuries and one dead family member. Critics assail the prices as being too high, but promoters point to how modern technology actually made the costs far lower than they were back during the era of modems and Vietnam.